Arlon Staggs, who leads the Self-Expression and Leadership Program for Landmark Education, recently wrote a column for The San Diego Gay and Lesbian News about how to create a powerful and effective community project fundraiser.

The column, titled “A little ambition goes a long way”, uses the example of Staggs’ own Self-Expression and Leadership Program project, a fundraiser for The Trevor Project which raised over $4,000 in a night without too much work on Staggs’ part.

Staggs offers four major pieces of advice:

1) Ignore the “second thought” (the reasons why not to do it)

2) After ignoring the second thought, start talking

3) Ask people to do things and give you stuff

4) Be open to other ideas and “give it away”

A final piece of parting advice offers is that even if you fail, it wasn’t going to happen anyway if you didn’t make the attempt. Staggs’ frank and useful advice can be read in its entirety at the San Diego Gay and Lesbian News website.